One thing now remained to be done before the President would withdraw federal power and leave the state to its own government, viz., ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. The legislature elected on November 15th assembled on December 4th.[23] The provisional governor, according to the President’s directions,[24] laid the Thirteenth Amendment before it. The Amendment was ratified on December 9th.[25] After this the provisional governor was relieved, the governor elect was inaugurated (December 14th), and the President sent a courteous message of recognition to the latter.[26]
Thus the President, having reconstructed the state government, had restored Georgia to statehood so far as its internal government was concerned. There remained only the admission of its representatives to Congress to complete the restoration.
CHAPTER II
THE JOHNSON GOVERNMENT
From the conduct of the state governments formed in Georgia and the other southern states under the direction of President Johnson, the public opinion of the North drew conclusions regarding three things; the disposition of the people represented by those governments toward the emancipated slaves, their attitude toward the cause for which they had fought, and their feeling toward the power which had subdued them. This chapter treats the Johnson government of Georgia from the same points of view.
Whatever may have been the prevailing disposition of the white people toward the slaves while slavery flourished, shortly before the close of the war that disposition was characterized by benevolence and gratitude. In spite of the opportunities of escape, and of plunder and other violence, offered by the times, the slaves had acted with singular faithfulness and devotion.[27] The gratitude of their masters even went so far as to propose plans for the general education of the negroes.[28]
The close of the war and the advent of emancipation produced a change in the conduct of the negroes, which in time produced a change in the attitude of the white people. The negroes, from the talk which they heard and did not understand, and from their ignorant imaginations, conceived strange ideas of emancipation. They supposed it meant governmental bounty, idleness, and wealth. They abandoned their work, wandered about the country, collected in towns—in short, manifested a general restlessness and demoralization. This caused alarm and apprehension among the white people. There were other causes of friction between the two races. Many negroes, on discovering that they were free, assumed what are known as “airs;” and then as now, among things intolerable to a southern white man a “sassy nigger” held a curious pre-eminence. The airs of the negro and the wrath of the white man were both augmented by officious members of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Moreover, because the negroes had gained by the humiliation of the South, they received a share of the venom of defeat. Another element of discord was furnished by a particular part of the white population, the so-called poor whites. These saw in the new protégés of the United States not only a rival laboring class, but a menace to their social position, and hence assumed an attitude of jealousy and hatred. Such were the conditions favorable to social disturbance which followed emancipation. In the latter part of 1865 they had already begun to produce their natural result. Violent encounters between negroes and white men (in which the latter were almost always the aggressors) were noticeably frequent.[29]
To this social demoralization was added economic distress and perplexity. The devastation of the war had fallen with especial severity upon Georgia. Worse still, the people seemed unable to repair the damage or to return to productive activity. Planters seemed unable to adapt themselves to the new economic conditions. Slavery, the system which they understood, was gone; they used the new system with little success, all the less because of the restlessness of the negroes.